Without advanced search tools, you would be forced to wander the Internet aimlessly in your quest for information. While randomly exploring can be fun, it can also be a big waste of time. There are a number of good search tools that can be found on the Web. Read on to discover how they are maintained and how to use them, as well as tips on using Yahoo!. You can test out your new found search skills using the Starting Point search engine, located here. Or check out the links at the bottom of the page to jump directly to one of the search tools. Happy hunting!

All Internet search products work in much the same way. Periodically, they comb the Internet looking for new information sources. When a new resource is located, it is cataloged, or indexed, along with its Internet address. Some search tools provide you with a form where you enter the criteria for your search. Others provide their index as a directory of categories you can search through. A few, most notably Yahoo!, offer both types of searches. With form based query tools, the search criteria you key in is compared with the search tool's internal index, and the results are returned as a series of hyperlinks. From here you can jump to any of the sites matching your selection criteria. With the directory approach, you begin with a number of high level categories and drill down to find the sites which best match. Different search tools use different methods to catalog/index new information resources. Some use computers to perform this task, while others are completely supported by humans. Computer maintained indexes, such as Alta Vista, utilize robots to browse the Internet in search of new information for its indexes. Yahoo, one of the more popular search tools, is an example of a cataloging service maintained by humans.

Use Boolean Logic to Find What you Want Faster
Don't let the term scare you - Boolean is just a term for a smart way of performing searches when using multiple words as your criteria. Boolean logic employs three key words: AND, OR, and NOT. Here's an example: let's say you need a recipe for apple pie, and you enter apple by itself as your search criteria. You would get back literally hundreds of thousands of listings about apples (the edible variety), Apple Computer (the company), Steve Jobs, John Sculley and too many others to list. But all you really wanted was a listing of apple pie recipes. You could structure your query (another word for search criteria) like this: apple and pie - That would return only those sites that have the words apple and pie in them. But it could still return sites discussing Apple Computer (Headline: Apple Computer Employee Wins Pie Eating Contest). To eliminate any reference to computers, write your query like this: apple and pie and not computer - This will return only sites discussing apple pies. Be as specific as possible when performing your search. The more information you give the search engine, the more likely the engine will return just the information you need.

Yahoo!
Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/) offers an extensive selection of categories of information located on the Web, ranging from Arts, Business and Economy, and Computers to Recreation and Science. Click any one of the category headings to display a list of subcategories. Continue drilling down through the directory structure until you find a site you are interested in. Click the link to jump directly to that Web site. If the site doesn't meet your needs, just click the Back button to return to Yahoo!. From there you can continue your search with other sites.



Another way of searching Yahoo! is via the query box. On Yahoo!'s home page, enter one or more key words to search for, then click the Search button. Setting Options to tailor your search Click on the Options link next to the Search button to set the search rules. You can choose to search through Yahoo!, Usenet, or for somebody's e-mail address. You can search for only those items added recently, such as during the past day, week, month... You can direct Yahoo! to search for items matching one or more of your keywords (select the boolean or option, or only those that match ALL your search words (choose boolean and), as in the mountain biking example above.



You can also tell Yahoo! to search the Internet for sites which match your keyword exactly (select complete words or for locations with words that are similar to your keyword (select the substrings option). For example, if you specify the complete words option, searching on water would return only those sites containing the word water. Alternatively, if you selected the substrings option, you would be presented with links to sites about water, waterfalls, WhiteWater, WaterWorld... (Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it!) - Lastly, you can choose the number of matches to display on a single page. The default is 25, but you can select any of the available options from the drop down box. Once you have entered all your keywords and set your options, click the Search button to start the search. You will see a count of the number of matches Yahoo! found followed by the highest level matching categories within Yahoo!. Next, you will see brief descriptions and links to all the individual matching sites. If the computer found a large volume of matches, there will be a link at the bottom of the page saying Next xx Matches where xx represents the number of matches per page specified above. Click this link to display the next page of links.

Alta Vista - www.Altavista.com | Excite - www.Excite.com | InfoSeek - Infoseek.com | HotBot - www.Hotbot.com | LinkMaster - www.Linkmaster.com | LookSmart - www.looksmart.com | Lycos - lycos.cs.cmu.edu | Starting Point - www.stpt.com | WebCrawler - www.Webcrawler.com | Yahoo! - www.Yahoo.com